butterflies and hurricanes
by itsspelledgrammar
Summary: When you’re twelve years old it seems like a long time before you can achieve your dreams… but sometimes reality doesn’t stand a chance. Possible NaruSasu, but nothing decided.


butterflies and hurricanes  
  
prologue: the patient  
  
introduction: This fic is a knee-jerk reaction to current events in the manga [the story arc beginning around chapter 183], meaning that there will be hellish spoilers. I got the vague idea a few weeks ago and didn't know whether or not to write it, but it grew into this monster of an idea that wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and write it regardless of what may happen in the next few chapters.  
  
It diverges from the canon timeline when Sasuke leaves Konoha, but it's very far from your traditional knee-jerk reaction that usually serves the purpose of putting things right and giving everyone their 'happy ending'. Kishimoto is probably going to do very different things with the canon, but the whole point of fanfiction is seeing the potential in a particular part of the canon and expanding upon it. This is exactly what this fic is.  
  
I should probably mention the main pairing I support is SasuNaru, but whether or not they will end up together -- good lord that sounded a lot cheesier than I intended – is anyone's guess.  
  
***  
  
Naruto was on the verge of waking to a sharp pain fanning from the centre of his torso to the sides. A barrage of noise was throbbing at his ears. He rolled over into the foetal position. He kept his eyes wrinkled shut because he was too tired to even begin to consider why people were in his house yelling and pounding around in the first place -- and sight would reveal who they were, if he should be angry, if he would have to move -- and because there was a weird sensation coupled with the pain just below his ribcage, like a sucking pressure moving towards his back.  
  
A pitiful moan escaped him, and the salvo of argument ended abruptly. Footsteps rushed around him and he was pulled from his protective position, despite trying to cling to his knees with his weak hands. They were flattening him onto his back, whoever they were, which made him vulnerable and magnified the misery pulsing in his middle. Informing the people crassly to stop, he swiped at them, brushing a rough swish of material as it easily dodged his reach. The sucking pressure grew stronger, and the flurry of sudden activity in his mind made him almost miss warm wetness creeping up his pyjamas.  
  
Oh great. His mind injected a slew of invective directed towards him as he realised that he had wet the bed. Now he would have to change the sheets, wash his pyjamas and find something else to wear in his disaster-of-a-room once he got rid of the people who were currently doing what felt like tying his flailing legs to the bed. They would realize what he'd done soon -- warm pool reaching their own hands and coating them with repugnance --so he shoved at every appendage that came close to him, a desperate thrash to protect his pride.  
  
"Get off me you idiots!" he howled, a disgustingly quiet watery gurgle, but his tone was livid and made up for what he lacked in strength. The voice was as weak as his limbs, barely able to contain the air as he breathed, and he frowned as hard as he could manage in frustration at himself. People were tying him to a bed and he was too weak to fight them off, hadn't realized they were a threat until too late, and had wet the bed in the process.  
  
They would probably let him live a while longer so that they could laugh at him. He backtracked a little after this thought, thinking that perhaps the situation wasn't as hopeless at it had first seemed. The corners of his mouth broke his face in a grin. When they stopped to laugh at him he would try a daring escape, and he had the advantage of being on his own territory. The blackened hallway would trip them up, but he knew where his shoes were positioned; where the warped, messy clothing was piled that would slow them down. Now if only he could remember how to untie the ropes...  
  
A sharp breath came next and caused agony to splinter through him, and the people around him replied by speeding up their bustle. Ropes. Sasuke knew how to untie ropes and Naruto couldn't remember, but he could remember that he had been in the woods not long ago; he hadn't been home in days. There were ropes scraping against his pulse points. He remembered Orochimaru's stupid useless ropes around the box that Sasuke was in.  
  
Sakura had been promised that Sasuke would be back, and he refused to break that promise. He'd break his wrists and pour himself out of the bed if he had to, just to get back to that battlefield, to fight the bone-man with his own splintered skeleton.  
  
If Sasuke was still in the box, then what was Naruto doing home in bed? With a renewed vigour he struggled and mauled and slapped -- as far as he could with the bindings as tight as they were -- and he opened his eyes regardless of the pain, because if he couldn't see then he couldn't escape, and then he would fail. Suddenly he recalled in a vague sense how to untie himself, but he noticed that he couldn't get his hands together to make the hand seal, so he started to scream and attempted to use brute strength to free himself.  
  
The effort was useless, he was sure he heard someone say. He felt like retorting that it wasn't useless until he was dead, but at that point the was in the process of bawling obscenities and dealing with sensory overload because of the surge of light, so the reply went unuttered. Vague shapes presented themselves, and he hated the dark, amorphous blobs on principle. Still, if he could see blobs then he could dodge them. He would free his arms.  
  
Then he'd drag that box back to Konoha.  
  
All of a sudden, he felt his strength eke away, and the pressure running through his chest surged downwards, and he noticed again the wetness beneath him. An odd force settled on top of the sensation, like warm hands. The pain was still pronounced, but now he had something else to focus on. Something searing was puddling above him and he was tired, but he still tried to lift his hands.  
  
He felt something touch his fingers, and he tried to scratch at it violently.  
  
"Sit still, brat!" a voice growled at his side; a female voice that he recognized. Angry suddenly he moved in defiance.  
  
"Don't call me a brat, you old hag!" he wanted to kick Tsunade, but he concentrated on wiggling his way out of the ropes gradually. He wasn't sure if he was imagining it -- he had just imagined that it was Tsunade tying him up, and that thought didn't adhere to any reasonable sequence of events -- but he could almost feel his left hand edging towards liberty.  
  
"I don't think so." Jiraiya yelled, smacking a hand down on the hand before it could taste freedom. The man had used excessive force. Naruto knew it. He vowed that when he was out of the bed he'd kick the pervert too. Jiraiya poked his face over Naruto's and gave an encouraging grin. "Don't move anymore. She's got your life in her hands right now, wouldn't want her getting hormonal--"  
  
Tsunade snarled lowly at Naruto's other side, and Naruto turned his attention towards her to make sure that she was actually there. Her face was a confusion of expressions; exasperation directed towards Jiraiya, and something like preoccupation manifested itself whenever she glanced away from the man towards Naruto's stomach. She was hunched over him, and he realized that it was her hands that were emitting the warmth into his body.  
  
It occurred to him swiftly that he hadn't wet the bed at all. Jiraiya still had a grip on his hand, thin strip of fabric stretched across his palm soaked also and cold. Naruto sat up, an action that he regretted quickly. Jiraiya had been distracted by what Tsunade was doing, but his attention immediately turned back to Naruto and he made a loud sound of aggravation as he shoved the boy -- delicately -- back onto the bed.  
  
Just before the room toppled around him, Naruto saw something he wished he'd realised without requiring a visual aid. Not only was the sopping chill on the band around Jiraiya's hand Naruto's blood, but also Tsunade was completely drenched in it. Her white top was sticking to her skin and was crimson, and her arms were saturated with sweat and claret. That wasn't the most unsettling thing about the scene. The rich colour on her arms drew his eyes down to where her hands rested, on the now bearable heat of his stomach.  
  
There was a gaping hole where the sucking sensation was, his orange jumpsuit nowhere to be seen and the seal on his stomach invisible except for a few places where hasty fingertips had tracked through the mess. A thousand memories recalled; the most powerful one of being so close to the eyes of Kimimaro, as the bone of his arm breached his belly once, twice, he stopped counting. He recalled the wrongness of it rather than the pain, and he knew that he hadn't realized the agony at the time, more concerned with feeling of the inside of the man's body penetrating his own entrails.  
  
It was too intimate for a punch.  
  
Naruto was caught for a moment between two courses of action. He could leave now and finish what he was supposed to be doing, get Sasuke back and beat him until he resembled the mess on Naruto's stomach. He could stop struggling and making his own condition worse. Either way he needed help.  
  
Knowing that he couldn't manage to flee by himself, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the flow of chakra in his form--  
  
"For the love of-- Naruto, stop it now!" Tsunade's voice broke his concentration and he looked at her. Her face was splashed, sweaty and bloody and the liquid was streaked through her blonde hair until it hung in limp cords. Her face was contorted in determination, anger and worry. "If you don't stop using chakra you'll die. Nine-tails or no Nine-tails. So stop being an idiot and playing around with your life!"  
  
She screeched her final statement and went back to work. Jiraiya looked stunned and tired, and let his hand drop away for a second, allowing Naruto to move his hand out of the binding.  
  
"Jiraiya, can you add your attention span to his and come up with something useful?" she yelled, furious now. She was frantically working and Jiraiya looked sheepish and smiled apologetically in both their directions. This did not endear him to Tsunade, and Naruto even turned an irritated glance towards him when he moved his hand back in place, double-knotting the rope.  
  
After that, there was quiet except for Naruto's blood making disconcerting sloshing sounds. He wondered exhaustedly how he'd arrived in Konoha, because he couldn't remember anything after Kimimaro's expression, but he set the thought aside and pondered more urgent matters. His mouth twisted in a bestial scowl.  
  
"Where the hell is Sasuke?" he screamed, pouring every ounce of emotion and fury that he could into the statement. He wanted to say more, that it was his job to get him back and to talk sense into him because no one else could. No longer able to struggle physically, he worked up some verbal inertia and started to ramble, "Why am I back here and not out there? Who's going to stop him from being stupid now? Why am I here?"  
  
Tsunade was about to speak, but Jiraiya beat her to it. "Naruto, save your strength, you're not making sense," Jiraiya said, a frown appearing on his forehead as the boy spoke. He was making sense, god damn them, and they were going to answer his question.  
  
"Where is Sasuke?" he roared, causing his lungs to labour too far and Tsunade to roar in protest.  
  
"Naruto, stop it, we can't understand what you're saying," Jiraiya said quickly. Tsunade did not glance at him, not ceasing work for a second. The room began to dim, and Naruto realized that the only thing keeping him awake was the demon's chakra. He was loosing blood fast, and it was making him weak. The thought that perhaps the Nine-tails was the only thing keeping him alive became apparent to him, and he twisted his lips in determination. Was his body failing and relying on the stupid fox's power? Was that what kept Tsunade working for so long?  
  
Naruto was now unsure whether the fading light meant that Tsunade had been working for hours, or whether it meant he was dying. He bit his lip roughly, incisors cutting fresh flesh and causing more blood to trickle in an itchy track down his cheek. The will to live became the focus of his thoughts. He couldn't die. Not yet.  
  
If his body wouldn't do it on his own, then he'd make it. He stopped being antagonistic and imagined how hard he'd punch Sasuke in the face when he got out of the bed. It was a good thought. Sakura would stop crying and would thank him for bringing him back. Kakashi would praise him for a job well done and grin stupidly. Sasuke would whimper and apologize and wouldn't ever try to leave, because he'd know that Naruto would hunt him down again.  
  
He grinned, knowing that his teeth were probably covered with the blood coating his mouth, but resolutely not caring. After several minutes he lost consciousness.  
  
*  
  
Naruto's eyes snapped open heavily, like the movement was in reality faster than his eyes could perceive the change in light. He remembered that there had been people in his house, but there was no noise now, a peaceful quiet playing around him along with the sunlight streaming through the blinds. There was something odd niggling in his mind about that thought, but he squirmed to his side and buried his hands under the pillow. Despite the amount of light in the room, his hands were cold.  
  
When he shifted, he noticed a large numb area in his torso. That was fine, because if he couldn't feel pain then there wasn't anything to worry about anymore. No more hole in his stomach that was bleeding over Tsunade and making her look so panicked, and pulling a serious expression onto Jiraiya's face.  
  
Naruto frowned and ripped away the covers gathered around his form.  
  
His room at home didn't have blinds. Standing on shaky legs he hobbled to the window and poked at them stupidly, scrunching his eyes and examining them to make sure they were real. When he did so, two of the shades parted and he glimpsed the outside, the view confirming that he was in the infirmary. A twinge of feeling ran up his side, and he rubbed it quickly and moved towards the door.  
  
The hallway was silent except for the footfalls of someone passing through one of the other corridors that ran perpendicular to the one he was situated in. He pressed his hand against the wall for leverage and pushed himself along. Naruto fingertipped the blunt ridges on the wall, where halfway up there was a border with wildly coloured animal pictures. They'd put him in the children's ward. He fumed violently, contemplating tearing the banner from the wall. Although he felt ridiculously weak and he didn't know where he was going, he shook his head to free it of the thought and walked as far as the reception area and peeked into it cautiously.  
  
He could hear something across the hall, in the other ward -- which was dark, and labelled 'critical' -- but he ignored it, and headed towards the door. His escape wouldn't be so fabulously well known now, but he'd still enjoy duping Tsunade and completing his task.  
  
His hand was caught roughly before he reached the door by a member of the Anbu, who grumbled quietly and ordered, "Go back to your room."  
  
"Hey, I'm a patient, you know; you shouldn't be manhandling me!" Naruto exclaimed violently, and somewhat pathetically, whilst trying to squirm out of the man's grasp. He let go, thankfully, and Naruto scowled when he noticed the numbness in his stomach was reasserting its existence.  
  
The painted convex flecks of red on the mask the man wore mimicked the tone in his voice as he stalked towards Naruto. "That's exactly why you," he gestured towards the corridor Naruto came from. "Should go back to your room."  
  
Suspicious and irritated, Naruto stopped backing away and examined the doors closer. The glass area was boarded up from the outside with black felt, and the handles were laden with thick padlocks. His eyes flickered to the Anbu. The mask was still smirking at him.  
  
"Why are the doors locked?" Naruto said.  
  
A scream momentarily distracted the other man. When he turned his attention back to Naruto he sighed in exasperation.  
  
"I'm very busy here. Go back to your room and don't leave it again until the Hokage gives you permission." The man gazed at the blacked out doors and skittishly looked towards the corridor the screaming was coming from every so often. Naruto scowled.  
  
When the Anbu seemed satisfied that he was no longer an annoyance, Naruto wandered slowly along to the critical ward. The pathway was calm, and even though it wasn't well lit it didn't harmonise with the ripping sound emanating from the room behind the third door along the right wall; there were still smiling pictures instructing patients to drink more milk. Grateful that the distracted Anbu didn't notice what he was doing until too late, he shoved open the door -- half expecting to be met with the resistance of a lock -- and barrelled into the room.  
  
His entrance went largely unnoticed, except for the Anbu's large hand grabbing at his shoulder.  
  
The person in the bed screamed like a caged animal. They swiped at the people hovering around them and the people speedily grabbed, yanking limbs down towards the mattress. Glass from the light bulb was strewn all over the floor, and Naruto saw it in time for his bare feet to avoid it.  
  
"What's with all the noise here?" Naruto yelled, and Tsunade answered.  
  
"Quiet!" She was the figure stationed at the far away side of the bed, pressing down on the person's head so that they were pushed into the pillow and couldn't move accept to thrust their middle in the air to make things awkward for whatever Tsunade and the others were trying to do.  
  
Their legs were shackled to the metal tubing at the bottom of the bed, and it was bent from the struggle to tie the person down. They were too weak now, because when they pulled their legs against the bonds the metal only slid along and clattered. They couldn't lift their feet very high anymore. The boy's -- Naruto assumed it was a boy, because a girl wouldn't have struggled like a beast to get away from help -- arms were currently being manacled to the framework of the bed.  
  
Naruto's stomach was beginning to hurt. The numbness subsided when the Anbu let him go. He scowled when Kakashi appeared propped against the wall beside him. He was looking towards the Anbu, and he closed the door as the man left.  
  
"Don't get in their way, Naruto," he said lowly, hunkered down so that Tsunade wouldn't hear him. The woman glanced up anyway and Naruto could visualize her scowl-marked forehead. Kakashi looked sheepishly over to her and leant against the wall again.  
  
"Huh!" Naruto huffed at the treatment he was receiving and crossed his arms. He pouted. "Some doctor you are when you've got to tie down all the patients!" He didn't care about the old woman's request for quiet. The patient wasn't exactly the most silent person he'd even encountered. The command seemed redundant.  
  
Seconds later the screaming stopped, and the person's disgruntled displeasure at being beaten was palpable. Naruto wished he could see in the dark, or at least that his eyes adapted to it faster. He could now pick out items scattered on the floor much like the glass was, and he eyes boggled when he spotted ripped sections of clothing meandering in a pathway to the bed. Naruto felt hazy empathy. Whoever was in the bed really didn't want to be there.  
  
Seconds later Naruto cursed his stupidity and let out a bawl before darting towards the bed. Kakashi pounced upon him and stopped him easily, but he didn't let that deter him.  
  
"Sasuke, you bastard!" he clawed at Kakashi's arms and felt his feet hit the floor and then fly into the air. Kakashi must have lifted him up. His teacher's hand clamped over his mouth and his teeth sank into it, feeling the metal on the back of his glove dent slightly and the cloth that his bottom incisors contacted rumple. The man swore, but he didn't let go, and neither did Naruto.  
  
He had walked through the glass in his frantic dash to reach the bed, and the pain skittered across his feet like they had been steam-scalded. Tsunade was peering at him, and he could see everything now. It felt like an eerily elongated time had passed since Kakashi picked him up and he struggled still, unable to open his mouth and yell at Sasuke because fighting caused his stomach to stab in agony, and had he opened his mouth he would have screamed.  
  
"Don't struggle, you'll only hurt yourself more. You're in here for a reason, Naruto." Kakashi said close to his ear, his usual good-natured tone lined with concern.  
  
Naruto moaned pathetically, and it was then that he met Sasuke's face. The boy was glaring at him in the dark, his chest heaving and his mouth in an odd position that resembled a snarl. He too looked ready for a fight, despite his probable exhaustion and the shackled that held him to the bed like thick rooted, shimmering weeds. Sasuke was murderous, the room was the forest, and Naruto remembered viscous blood streaked over roots and long yellow grass. Red and yellow.  
  
Orange.  
  
Naruto took his mouth away from Kakashi's hand and focused on the boy lying before him rather than the pain, and Sasuke's murky face rather than the bonds. He steeled himself and stopped hitting at Kakashi's arms. As predicted, Kakashi set him down on the ground again but kept his arms hooked under Naruto's armpits: half in support, and half to prevent him from attacking the other boy. Naruto defiantly put his weight on his own feet.  
  
They stared at each other and Sasuke broke the silence. "Still can't fight for yourself."  
  
He choked on something that Naruto hoped was vile and closed his eyes briefly. He had only half an idea what Sasuke was talking about because there was an obvious reference to something recent, but an insult was an insult. Tsunade rolled her eyes and motioned towards Shizune. She walked towards the prone boy.  
  
"When you get out that bed I'm gonna--" Naruto exclaimed and tried to break free. He fell over and punched the floor, pausing for a second to catch his breath. He scooped up a piece of the material of Sasuke's black shirt and gripped it, feeling the fibres labour under the abuse.  
  
Sasuke laughed fast, then coughed from the effort. He lifted his arm and the manacle jingled.  
  
"Well I'm not going anywhere soon," He said, and looked bitterly back to Naruto.  
  
"Yeah. The doors are all locked," Naruto grinned.  
  
***  
  
a/n: This chapter is described by my beta [Erishon] as 'The One Where Tsunade's Rummaging Around in Naruto Like She's Delivering a Calf', so I'll never look at that scene quite as seriously as I did when I was first writing it. Also, when I sent it to him he read the first sentence completely wrong. I'll leave you to ponder what he thought... Naruto is a fun character to write, even when he's half-dead, but I did feel weird writing this chapter because most of it had to involve feeling rather than visual input. It made me realise how much I usually rely on visuals to create a scene, so I guess it was a good exercise.  
  
I haven't explained much in this chapter at all, but I've only just started, so bear with me. Would reading be fun if you all knew what was coming? It will all become clear shortly, so be patient. That was the worst joke ever.  
  
Whilst I was waiting for my beta I nitpicked until I exhausted myself. I think I should thank him right now, because when I was carping I realised something quite important [read: one of the most vital factors] about the fic. You see, even in his flaws he's damn perfect.  
  
Erishon, this one's for you. I say that as if the rest aren't. 


End file.
